Effective Time Management Tips

A lot of comments I have gotten through my Content Marketing series referred to the lack of time to spend on promoting. In this post I want to lay out some tips for time management that I follow.

Above all one must know their values. You must allow for family time, personal time, and time for devotion. Second, you must define your goal(s). For help with this read "Personal Goal Planning - Steps to Making Your Goals a Reality."

• Get Moving! Point plain and simple, if you have something to do, or you want to do, do it. Act! What are you waiting for?
• Plan! Get organized. Make yourself a schedule. If you know what you should be doing at a certian time on a certian day, it will be easier to accomplish what ever you desire.
• Pick what you do wisely! Sudden changes in your schedule can be good and may lead to unexpected opportunities. However, you must keep in mind that every deviation means one less task is being accomplished. Learn to say "no" sometimes instead of saying "yes" all of the time.
• Segment your tasks! Big jobs may seem daunting initially. Breaking up large projects into small chunks will make the job easier.
• Learn when to stop! How much is too much? Perfection is overrated, often unattainable, and a matter of judgement. You can dissect a task to death. You are you own worst enemy (especially true of writers a lot of great work is trashed when edited one too many times by yourself). Learning to stop a project upon completion is beneficial to you and your time.
• Manage your tasks, schedule them, complete them at the scheduled time! This applies to everything from bill paying to meetings.

1. Assess tasks-do what is important, valuable, or goal related.
2. Make time for it
3. Forget about it until it's time. If extra research or preparation is necessary for it, schedule that too.
4. Act on whatever it is at the scheduled time. For meetings get it done but don't let it run over your allotted time. Of course this rule does not apply for doctor appointments as they always run over or late--you're better off not to schedule anything else for the day.